[tex-live] Re: context / directory structure

[Karl Berry]

    It will be official as soon as the new tds document is released to
    the public.

And the reason it isn't released yet is to give time to discuss
the implications, exactly like this :).


- Regarding the map files:
Hans, I agree with you that map/dvips is being used "generically".
The name map/generic might be better.  Thomas?

I also agree that it would be highly desirable for everything to use
*one* map file syntax.  But the reality is they don't, so we have to
conform to reality, not the other way around.


- Regarding the encoding files:
As Thomas said, we have a long history of inventing slightly new
syntaxes with each new program.  Therefore putting .enc files directly
into texmf/enc/*.enc does not seem desirable to me.

And as Hans said, the idea of (future) different enc syntaxes being in xml,
or based on the underlying format (ps, svg, ...), makes sense.  So maybe
we should have enc/ps instead of enc/dvips, since again, "dvips" is being
used generically there.


- Regarding searching:
My assumption is that if different programs require different syntaxes,
then there will be different paths.  For instance, pdftex might need
PDFTEXMAPPATH=texmf/map/pdftex:texmf/map//
(I don't know what it uses for searching now.)
Of course if the names are unique, it doesn't matter.


- In general:
The whole enc/map situation is poorly understood by users (including
me!) and poorly documented (that I've found).  Thomas/Hans, would it
possible to write something short stating exactly how to use updmap,
texfont, (other tools?), to install a new font, or list the fonts
available?  (Those are the two most common desires, in my experience.)


Thanks,
k